


In this Twilight Our Choices Seal Our Fate

by EveryDayBella



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: And she's not wrong, Gen, M/M, Teysa "lock me up but I'm still superior to you" Karlov, Tomik "sorry but I'm not sorry" Vrona, Tomik respects her so much though, because that ship needs more love, cries, he's a good too for the Orzhov, he's too good for Ravnica really, how are you the way you are Tomik, squint and you'll miss it Teysa/Kaya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 18:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21306341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryDayBella/pseuds/EveryDayBella
Summary: Tomik choose Kaya. He just wants to explain.NOW SUBTITLED MY TOMIK AND TESYA SCENE IS BETTER THAN THE CANNON ONE
Relationships: Tomik Vrona & Teysa Karlov, Tomik Vrona/Ral Zarek
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	In this Twilight Our Choices Seal Our Fate

**Author's Note:**

> I loved TGS with my whole heart. This was just a scene that I needed. God I love Tomik so much. Give me Tomik back story wizards!
> 
> Thanks and love to Jimaine and Thren for betaing, cheerleading, and reminding me to post it. You guys are really the best. 
> 
> Title from Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons.
> 
> post Forsaken note: I'm not bitter at all 😡😡😡😡

It wasn’t that Tomik didn’t have ambition, no matter what certain voices in his guild might have said.  _ I guess they won’t be saying that anymore.  _ It was more a matter of what he was ambitious for. He didn’t want power for power’s sake, or wealth for the way it glittered. The Vronas might not have been the most prestigious of oligarchs, but they still had both in abundance. He had more than he would ever need. He just wanted to be... better. Better than what had come before. Better than what he’d always been, what they’d always been. He’d gained an odd reputation early on and maybe that had pushed him to the outside, but he wouldn’t have been as good an advokist, especially at so young an age, without a little ambition. 

Bending the law didn’t mean you couldn’t have a moral code in the process. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Kaya told him with sympathy and a trace of respect in her voice. She must have known the sheer guts it would take to do this. They were standing at the base of a set of curling tower stairs that Tomik had hoped he’d never have to see again. His boss hadn’t been the only one who had been trapped in their shadow.  _ Freedom had been so nice.  _

“No, I’ve put this off long enough as it is.” Helping Kaya wrangle the guild into enough order to make them of any use saving Ravnica had been a convenient excuse, but he still had to do this.  _ I owe her an explanation, whether it will help or not.  _

Something passed over Kaya’s face, longing perhaps, before being swiftly tucked away. Tomik knew the two had grown strangely close over the time they’d spent together. Tomik thought longingly of Ral, somewhere on the other side of the district with his machine, before he shut down that line of thought.  _ I can’t help him with that. But I can do this.  _

Kaya reached out and squeezed his arm encouragingly—looking like she wanted to say something else—before turning back to the hallway. Tomik took a deep breath and braved the stairs. 

The door to the apartments weren’t locked. The guards below would stop anyone entering or leaving without permission, and no one on Ravnica was as skilled as Kaya nor suicidal enough to try climbing Orzhova. The inside was tasteful enough, even if it didn’t glitter with gold over every surface.  _ No one but the Orzhov would think this is a prison.  _

Tomik had gone to a zoo once when he’d been much younger. The biggest of the animals—the apex predators—had paced in their cages, restless and anxious to get out and back to their own wildness, their freedom. She didn’t. The carpets and rugs were still neat, pressed even to the floor without even a corner curled. She was perfectly still, the arm not leaning on her cane held behind her back and standing before the great eastern window. For once it wasn’t storming and the other lit spires and towers of the Tenth were her backdrop. Even Nivix faintly glowed in the distance. From this high up it looked still, though Tomik knew that was a lie. The city never truly slept. How even that peaceful lie must have looked appealing to this caged lion. 

“Come to gloat?” she asked, back still to him, her imperious voice somehow weary. 

“You should know me better than that, Mistress.” Tomik didn’t gloat. He might assert his achievements for an edge in an argument, but he wouldn’t gloat. 

“I would have thought, and yet here I am, back in this tower.”

Tomik winced. It was a fair point. “I want to explain…”

“What about?” she turned her head to glare at him just over her shoulder. Somehow it was just as dismissive, if not more, than not turning to look at him at all. “How you sold me out to an outsider? Or how you betrayed me when I was about to give you everything.”

Tomik sighed. He’d actually half-hoped she might listen to reason. “It was the way. You were willing to kill Kaya just to…”

She tsked, and turned back to the window. In their normal interactions, this would be where Tomik would see himself out. It wasn’t his place to impose, but he wanted her to understand that this wasn’t personal. It wasn’t about him wanting more. It was about doing the right thing. 

Tomik took a step forward. “Kaya doesn’t want this,” he said, his voice even and without trembling as he stood up to the most powerful person in the guild—one of the most powerful people on Ravnica. He might have a deathwish. It  _ was _ something his mother had exasperatingly said before. Tomik continued, “You’re not wrong, she’s not an Orzhov. She’s not hard enough, she’s not cold enough to be one. She won’t ignore the things that we’ve grown accustomed to ignoring. She’s good for us... but that’s not the only reason I helped her.” Teysa scoffed quietly, as if she couldn’t imagine any other reasons he might have being any more compelling, but Tomik set his jaw and said quietly, “I couldn’t let you turn into your grandfather.”

Tesya turned slowly, her glare absolutely murderous. There was a spike of fear down Tomik’s spine, but he stood firm. “How dare you. Who are you?” she asked, flicking a derisive hand in his direction. “A child from a minor family. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be rotting in some pontiff’s service. You know nothing about my grandfather. If you knew the half of the things he’d done, you’d be running out of here screaming.”

_ Maybe, and I’ll always be in your debt for giving me a better purpose, but that debt doesn’t trump my own values. _ “My parents have been ghosts since I was five. I have never doubted their feelings for me, but they’re weren’t exactly the most present of guardians. I had to do things for that pontiff,” Tomik spit the title and then paused to breath deep and recenter himself, “that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I will always be thankful to you for saving me from that. I might not be a Karlov, but I know the darkness that lives at the heart of this guild. I know how many victims it’s claimed. I couldn’t just stand by and let it claim you. So I’m sorry, Mistress Karlov, but I made my choice.”

“You did,” Teysa sighed, resigned. She turned back to the window, both hands resting on her cane. After a moment she asked, “Is that Zarek I hear in your voice?”

Tomik couldn’t help the smile that blossomed across his face. “No. Ral would have been willing to let you kill Kaya if it meant he got his machine.”

“And yet he helped you anyway.” 

Tomik shrugged. “He’s … changing.”

“You shouldn’t have gone into property law,” Teysa remarked. “You were made for a courtroom.”

“May I take that as a compliment?”

“Yes, damn you.” Teysa hid it will, but Tomik had known her for long enough that he thought he knew the pride in her voice. 

“Kaya isn’t your enemy. You could work with her.” Teysa raised one hand, and Tomik shut his mouth. He knew he’d pushed his luck far enough for now, but maybe, someday, he could get Teysa and Kaya to work together. That was a future he would be interested in seeing. 

Before he could get too caught up in his daydream, something happened beyond the windows. The spidery construct that had been built on the roof of Nivix slowly started to unfold and spread blue and white arcing electricity across the city, striking a dozen or more places across the district, even Orzhova itself. Steam rose from the Izzet guildhall, wreathing it in mist.

“What are those idiots doing?” Teysa muttered while Tomik’s heart thundered in his chest. 

“He said it would be a couple of days? They still had to do testing...”

“I believe your timetable has been moved up. You should go to your guildmaster.”

Tomik nodded slowly, like he was moving though honey. They were supposed to still have time. Ral had said days, and he’d barely gotten to see him in that time. He hadn’t gotten to tell him…

Teysa took his arm, pulling him from the edge of fear—for Ral, for the Orzhov, for Ravnica. “Go,” she intoned, steady and confident. 

Tomik nodded once, and forced himself away from the window. 

Bolas was coming, and there was work to be done. 


End file.
